


Unspoken

by Sophia_Bee



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 10:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2384555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Erik on the plane as they head towards Paris. Canon and a short one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> this is pretty much my favorite scene in the movie. The level of hurt and anger as Charles and Erik confront each other KILLS me. There is so much subtext that it screams. So I thought I'd write some of it. And since I know that so much of fanfic is about erotica, um, sorry. No sex here. But LOTS of feels. So many feels. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

For every word Charles Xavier says as he stares across the plane at Erik Lehnsherr, he leaves one hundred other things unspoken. They dance with their words, shifting blame back and forth, never saying what they really want to. The words can't come out. All he can do is leap forward and fist his hands in Erik’s shirt and spit out that the in the end Erik had left him alone, unable to walk and unable to stop the dreams. 

Erik says it was Charles who left them all, not just him. Angel, Azazel, Emma, Banshee. Left them to be tortured. Left them to die. The words hurt in a way Charles had not expected because he knows Erik has never shied away from the truth and he still isn’t. 

He never says that Charles left him. He leaves that unspoken, hanging between them, a question unanswered. Charles knows the question. Didn’t you love me enough to stop hiding, to come find me? Charles doesn’t know the answer, or it might be that feigning ignorance is safer than dealing with the truth that Erik has laid bare for him. There is nothing he can say that prevents him from incriminating himself. 

The way the metal on the plane vibrates and bends towards Erik's anger and sorrow might say enough anyway. 

There was a time when Charles' words could reach Erik, when he could tell him to calm his mind and Erik would listen, but that time has come and gone. It's not like he has the right to say anything to the man standing in the middle of the plane anymore. Charles has become more like Erik than he ever imagined possible, filled with rage and lacking any of the serenity he had once promised the man he loved. He no longer holds any moral high ground so what right does he have to try and stop Erik’s rage. 

Their promises hang between them unspoken as well, once whispered across bare skin in the darkness of night, all ending up broken, sliced apart in the same way that fated bullet had sliced Charles' spine. If Charles could still hear Erik's thoughts, could still lightly brush against his mind, he might be able to push past the anger, past the ideology to one small flickering thought that will remain unspoken. 

I lost YOU. 

Instead he has chosen walking over his telepathy and there is nothing for him to read beyond the anger that causes Erik's eyes to flash and one unbidden thought rises to the surface of Charles' dulled mind. 

I never realized I'd hurt you this much. 

If Charles Xavier wasn't so concerned with the very real possibility that Erik's rage might crumple the plane like a tin can he might be able to stop and say this, to finally bring what lies between them into the daylight. He can't find the words and it's only Hank's desperate shout of Erik's name that brings the man back to reality. The plane straightens and the metal objects drop to the floor.

Charles turns and leaves, unable to stay any longer and face how much the man he loved hates him. He's torn apart. He cannot remain in the same space as Erik without letting loose the wail that is building in his chest, so he finds refuge in the cockpit, ignoring the way Hank glances over at him with concern. He is shaking, breathing fast, and he wants to tell Erik again that all he ever wanted was to sleep. Because since Cuba his sorrow is so deep that he can’t shut out the voices and the serum that took away his powers is the only way he’d found to find any measure of the peace he craved so badly. The price was worth it. The quiet was worth it, until Erik looked at him with such disdain, unable to comprehend why anyone would choose being human over their mutant ability. Maybe he would understand if he could look back and see the toll the sleepless nights had taken on Charles, if he could understand that shutting out the voices was the only way to shut out his loss. Erik. Raven. Only cutting out that part of himself had finally brought the kind of dreamless drifting sleep he needed to stay sane.

Hank had seen this, and now he glances again at Charles who has buried his face in his hands as he tries to shut out Erik’s words. If only the world was as black and white as Erik presented it. If only he felt his choice was that easy, and the truth of what Erik says sits under his skin. If he had made a different choice, maybe, just maybe one of the mutants who were tortured and killed might have survived. 

Charles hears Erik picking up the items that have been strewn around the cabin, and he doesn’t know if he can return to sit across from the man who has basically accused him of helping with the destruction of mutantkind, because part of him knows that Erik is right. 

“He’s hurt,” Hank says softly as Charles fights to gain control, and he’s surprised to hear empathy for the mighty Magneto from his friend. 

“So am I,” Charles mutters, his voice muffled. 

“You can’t get this hurt by someone if you don’t care about them in the first place,” Hank continues as he gazes out over the horizon. Charles doesn’t answer. The cockpit is silent as the plane speeds towards Paris. Then Hank clears his throat softly and his words echo into the quiet. 

“This isn’t just about Raven. Or the ones who have died. He left you on the beach, damaged and broken.”

Charles breath catches in a soft sob at Hank’s words.

“And you left him in that cell, assuming the worst of him,”

Charles glances up to gaze at Hank’s profile. His friend is still speaking but refuses to meet Charles eyes with his.

“You are both gripped by ideals that you put above each other.” Hank says hesitantly, as if he’s afraid of what it will mean to place these words between them, “neither of you willing to bend for the other, but I know there is something besides ideals between you. Something bigger.”

Love. 

Hank is right. No matter their disagreements, even if they spend the rest of their lives trying to kill each other, nothing changes the fact that Charles will never stop loving the man he pulled out of the water in Miami, the one he knew everything about, the one he had held and promised him that he would no longer be alone. Charles sifts through his hurt and his pain and starts to understand that for just now he might be able to set some of this aside. 

“Hank McCoy, you are a loyal friend,” Charles says, his voice resigned. “How long until Paris?”

“A couple more hours,” Hank replies, turning his head to finally meet Charles’ gaze now that they are on the neutral ground of flight plans and travel times. 

“A little more time,” Charles says to himself. “Just a little more time.”

He doesn’t know what will happen in Paris. He knows what he hopes. They will find Raven and his sister will not face the same fate as the others, captured and killed for her DNA. Will she turn to see him, will they find common ground, or will she walk away, Charles cannot predict. Will he get his sister back after almost ten years of being on different sides of a conflict with a common enemy? Will anything change for Charles, Raven and Erik if they manage to change history? The one thing that Charles knows that that the chasm that exists between him and Erik will not be breached no matter what the outcome, so tonight is all they have for the time being. 

He returns to the cabin to find Logan nodding off in one of the chairs and Erik sitting on the couch, his eyes following Charles as he walks towards him. Charles sit down on the couch next to him, closer than he really should be, their thighs almost touching. Erik swallows as his eyes study Charles’ face and part of Charles longs to close that almost infinitesimal physical space that separates them, sitting between them, gaping like an open wound. He longs to again feel the press of Erik’s thigh against his, even if that’s all he can have. 

“I am sorry,” Erik says quietly. “I never meant for things to end up like this between us.”

Charles thinks of Hank’s words, that both of them have chosen ideology instead of each other. He could tell Erik that he’s made his choices, accuse him of not caring, but instead he decides to pull out one of those unspoken truths that they keep from each other.

“Me either.”

There was as time when this truth would have been enough, but now it feels like trying to stop a wild fire with a mere drop of water. What they have ignited between them after Cuba has grown far bigger than either can control. There is no way to stop it outside of their mutual destruction, and this knowledge weights Charles down like an anchor. 

Erik sighs heavily then drops his face into his hands. 

“Oh, Charles. I am not the evil man you think I am. I do not have blood on my hands without it coming with a great weight on my soul.”

“Really, Erik?” Charles scoffs slightly, unable to hold back his disbelief. “You don’t see the deaths you’ve caused as justified, the means to an end?”

“You forget, old friend,” Erik hisses, his face turning to a mask of stone at Charles’ words. Here they are back at the same old argument, and for the life of him, Charles had never meant to end up at this place again when he came to sit next to his friend, former lover, person who will always hold Charles’ heart in his hands. “I have seen what they are capable of. The world promised never again, but it happens over and over again, and it will never stop. I have lost one family to people who thought of me as less than an animal. And a second family to the likes of Trask, who is cut from the same cloth as the Nazis. Do you not understand that I cannot sit by again, that I cannot live with myself if I don’t do everything in my power to stop this, even if it means that people die. I do see the deaths as justified, but I still don’t take what I’ve had to do in the name of the big picture lightly.”

“I do understand,” Charles says softly, admitting a truth to himself that he rarely will acknowledge. In a way, Erik’s principles are so much purer than his own. Erik might want to destroy the human race, but he is doing it in the name of saving what is important to him. He might be the most principled person Charles has ever known, even if those principles are twisted. Sometimes Charles thinks his desire for peace come from his own need to feel he’s done the right thing, and he’s not entirely sure he’s been right all this time, and does that actually mean he’s more selfish than principled? He also knows that he and Erik are too far apart to find common ground at this point, and even if they have come together to save Raven, it will not be long until they part ways again.

“Do you think there will be a time when we can set all this aside,” Erik asks, as if he’s been reading Charles’ mind, and if things were lighter between them Charles might ask exactly who is the telepath in the room. It’s Charles turn to sigh as he lets go of the tension and anger he’s been holding and he scoots closer to Erik, closing that small gap between them, his feeling the warmth of Erik’s thigh against his own. He hears Erik’s sharp intake of breathe. 

“I think all we have is right now, Erik,” Charles says softly. “We’ve been given these moments and we shouldn’t waste them being angry at each other. There will be plenty of time for anger in the future. I have no doubt we will manage to hurt each other in a million different ways, but right now, maybe we can let some of this go.”

Erik stares at Charles, taking in his words, then he smiles, that familiar smile that always makes Charles want to laugh and kiss him at the same time, and it’s almost like the old Erik is back, the one from before Magneto and the Brotherhood and all the pain. This is the Erik who had turned to him after moving the satellite dish, full of joy. As much as Charles wants this Erik back, even if only for a few hours, seeing him again hurts like nothing he’s ever experienced, and Charles feels his eyes fill with tears. 

“Yes,” Erik says, his eyes locked on Charles’. Erik brings his hand to Charles’ face and his fingers trembling as they trace along his jawline, softly, almost reverently, as if touching a long-lost treasure. “I have missed you, old friend.”

~fin~


End file.
